American English Vs British English

AMERICAN ENGLISH

VERSUS

BRITISH ENGLISH

“Pronunciation, Spelling, Morphology

& Vocabulary”

Germán Calvo Martínez

Prof. José Navarro

INDEX

1. INTRODUCTION

2. HISTORY OF BRITISH VS AMERICAN ENGLISH

1. American vs. British Accent

2. Differences in use of tenses

3. DIFFERENCES IN SPELLING

4. DIFFERENCES IN PRONUNCIATION

5.DIFFERENCES IN VOCABULARY

6. DIFFERENCES IN MORPHOLOGY

7. CONCLUSION

1. INTRODUCTION

English is spoken in many countries, both as a mother language or second language. That's why there are many variations and differences in the language, including American English compared to British English, but I think these differences are smaller due to the currentinternationalization of our modern world.

I think the American version of English is becoming dominant for several reasons. In my opinion, an example of why American English has a stronger impact than the British English, is turn on the television in Spain. You can see American shows or films in original version, which causes young people to learn, assimilate, and use much more  theAmerican vocabulary. It follows that British English is much more likely to be influenced by American English.

However, as with any other subject, there are many more variations which I will detail later.

2. HISTORY OF BRITISH VS AMERICAN ENGLISH

The English language was introduced into the U.S. through British colonization in the 17th century and spread to many parts of the world because of the strength of the British Empire.Over the years, English spoken in the United States and Great Britain began to diverge from each other in several respects. This led to two dialects in the form of American English and British English.

1. American vs. British Accent

Before the Revolutionary War and American independence from the British in 1776,  United States and British accents weresimilar. Since 1776, the accents were  separated, but the English accent in America has changed drastically to less emphasis  on Britain.

Towards the end of 18 century, the discourse rhotic off in southern England, especially among the upper class, the "prestige" of speech is rhotic not widespread in Britain since then.

There are some exceptions: New York and England became non-rhotic accents, because of the Britishconnections in the region. Irish and Scottish accents, however, remained rhotic.

To be fair, both Americans and British have various accents and there is a typical American or British accent.

2. Differences in use of tenses

British English uses the present perfect to talk about an event in the recent past and using the words already, just and yet. In American English, these meanings can be expressed with the present perfect (to express a fact or the simple past (which implies  an expectation). The American style has become widespread only in the last 20 or 30 years, the British style remains also commonly used. Recently the American use of just with simple past has made inroads into British English, most visibly in advertising slogans and headlines such as "Cable broadband just gotfaster".

Examples: "I've just arrived home." / "I just arrived home." "I've already eaten." / "I already ate."
In British English, have got or have can be used for possession and have got to and have to can be used for the modal of necessity. The forms that include ‘‘got’’ are usually used in informal contexts and the forms without got in contexts that are more formal. In Americanspeech the form without got is used more than in the UK, although the form with got is often used for emphasis. Colloquially, American English informally uses got as a verb for these meanings.
Examples: “I got two cars” “I got to go”
In conditional sentences, United States spoken usage often substitutes would and  would have for the simple past and for the pluperfect...